Looky, Looky, Cheapy, Cheapy, Grabby, Grabby

Tibet: a highly contested region where Buddhism runs deep, the yak is king, and beggers make change.

We are staying one more night in Shigatse before heading to Mt. Everest tomorrow. After a sleepless night Ceci and I were able to switch rooms to one that is much better, but we carry with us the scars from last night and are still unable to lay on the beds without a layer of protection between ourselves and the blanket. While I have really enjoyed Tibet, I'm not sure how many more monasteries I can handle. Not that they haven't been amazing to see, but once you've seen 10,000 incarnations of Buddha you've pretty much seen them all. But I really appreciate that you can use the same thing to butter your toast and make an offering to Buddha. That saves me the embarrassment of accidentally eating something meant for an alter ... again. 

The smell of yak butter and incense is everywhere; it sticks to the walls and permeates every crevasse. The yak itself turns out to be a very tasty beast, although the yogurts and cheeses made from its milk are overly sweet in a way that seems to contradict their natural gaminess instead of complimenting or counteracting it.

  
Tibet is indescribably beautiful; the mountains seamlessly roll into and over each other, and the colors here are like no others I have ever experienced. The blues and greens of the sky and water appear to be alive. Crayola would kill for these colors. I can’t help but be in awe every time I look up or out across the land. Every town and city we have been through is surrounded by the mountains of the Himalayas. Look down and see a rickshaw pulling a monk, or a donkey and cart carrying a load of fresh yak butter for candles or tea; look up and see a snow covered peak.

It is also a very intense place to be a tourist. The military presence is strong, especially in the larger cities, and there is a palpable tension in the air. Young Chinese soldiers wielding semiautomatic weapons are posted on every corner of Lhasa while others march up and down the streets and squares. Apparently it's been this way since the riots in 2008. We also don't have much freedom of movement. Beyond the permit to come to Tibet, we have had to acquire many more along the way, and have had to turn over our passports so many times that I am pretty sure the authorities have grown attached to our faces and, while they probably don’t realize it yet, will miss us when we're gone. 

Since we don't have much say in our itinerary, we've found ourselves wandering through local markets, where we are attacked on all sides by aggressive peddlers trying to pique our interest in whatever it is they have on offer. While this is not anything unique to Tibet, there seems to be a level of aggression here that I don't seem to remember elsewhere -- evidenced by the bruise on my arm where I was literally pulled by a woman trying to sell me jewelry. I've also had an earring inserted into my earlobe without permission, been scoffed at, followed, yelled at, licked, yanked, urged to bite a bracelet on more than one occasion, and become more intimate with a woman’s cold sore than anyone ever should. The script is always the same. “Heelllooo. Looky, looky, cheapy, cheapy” comes at me from all sides. I find myself going back and forth between pretending I don’t speak this language of tourist trap and keeping my eyes diverted, or falling into a pattern of speech similar to theirs. Before I realize it I’m responding "I looky, I looky",  "me likey, me likey",  "no wanty, no wanty” -- or when they have worn me down, “how cheapy?” 

I have found that I am generally not well liked by the stall owners. I don’t have much interest in shopping nor the money to spend, and despite their commendable efforts I don’t end up buying much. By the time I have made it to the end of a row of stalls I have to find another row to walk back up because I'm certain that if I were to turn around I would find 15-20 Tibetans staring me down, prepared to pounce the minute I step back into their territory. They may be small, but they are solid, and I am not above admitting that they would crush me so fast I wouldn’t even have the time to say “ok, ok, I’ll takey, I’ll takey.”